By IANS
New Delhi : A thriving ‘Princess Friendship Club’ that duped many men of thousands of rupees by enticing them with baits of providing “willing” female friends was busted by the police here Tuesday, and 11 women and a man were arrested.
The gang duped men in Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The alleged kingpin, Varun Singh, and the women were nabbed from two offices in a shopping mall near Pankha Road in west Delhi.
A local court later sent those arrested to two days’ judicial custody.
Explaining their modus operandi, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Satyendra Garg said: “They advertised in newspapers giving mobile numbers procured on fake documents. The clients called up the numbers which were attended by one of the girls. The girls then promised contact numbers of women willing to be friends.”
“The girls used to ask them to deposit money in bank accounts opened on fake documents,” he said.
There were three categories of female friends – the lower category comprising willing college girls and housewives, the middle of teachers, doctors and professionals, and the upper category comprising models and airhostesses.
“The charges depended on the category chosen. For contacts details of lower category, the club charged Rs.2,500, for middle level it was Rs.3,500 and for upper category it was Rs.5,000 a month,” he said.
“After the money was deposited, one of the 11 women entertained the customers on the telephone for some time. Efforts were made to squeeze out more money from the callers. When the caller became insistent on meeting the promised dream girl, his calls were invariably rejected,” Garg said.
Nineteen mobile phones, four landlines, 13 debit cards, seven credit cards, several registers with the names and numbers of ‘clients’ and other documents were seized from the arrested people. Almost all the debit and credit cards were got on fake addresses, as were the telephone connections, the police said.